I propose to take Questions
Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together.
In the year 2000, there were 6.3 million overseas visitors to Ireland who contributed an estimated £2.2 billion, 2.80 billion, in foreign revenue earnings, excluding Irish carrier receipts which amounted to £0.6 billion, 0.75 billion. There were 1.1 million visitors from north America who contributed almost £560 million, 710 million, or 25% of foreign revenue earnings.
No official estimates are as yet available in relation to the loss of tourism business from the United States and elsewhere arising from the tragic events of 11 September 2001. However, although it is accepted that it is still too early to assess the overall impact on international travel patterns, it is clear that the terrorist attacks in the US are likely to impact significantly on visitor numbers to Ireland, in particular from America, for the balance of this year and into 2002, leading to the first annual decline in visitor numbers for a decade.
The latest official CSO tourism and travel statistics, published on Friday, 28 September, indicate that earnings from overseas visitors to Ireland during the first half of 2001 showed an increase of 3.8% to £1.3 billion on the same period last year. Overall visitor numbers for the first half of 2001 were down 5.2% to 2.7 million on the same period last year, with the slowdown being most acute in the case of Great Britain and north America. Bord Fáilte now estimates that total overseas visitor numbers for 2001 are likely to show a further reduction on that figure following the terrorist attacks.
Bord Fáilte's original estimate for 2001 was for an increase of 5% in overall visitor numbers, although that estimate had been revised significantly downwards in the light of the anticipated adverse impact of the foot and mouth disease emergency earlier this year. Ironically, Irish tourism was beginning to show signs of recovery from this setback, mainly due to the early lifting of the major FMD restrictions in line with expert technical advice and subsequently, due to the beneficial impact of a targeted £10 million, 12.7 million international and domestic tourism marketing reassurance campaign by Bord Fáilte.
Since the tragic events of 11 September, both myself and officials of my Department have met senior management of both Bord Fáilte and Tourism Ireland Ltd., the new all island tourism marketing company, and with a high level delegation from the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation, ITIC, to take stock of the situation and to put in place arrangements to ensure that marketing strategies will be developed to deal with the fall-out from the recent atrocity for the remainder of this year's season and for 2002. Critical factors will include not only the nature and duration of the response to the terrorists' attacks, but also the speed with which public confidence in air travel can be restored.
Given the changed environment, it is vitally important that there is a root and branch reassessment of our tourism marketing strategies, including how and where we focus our business, so that the substantial Exchequer funding already allocated for this area under the national development plan has maximum impact. The Exchequer budget for tourism this year will be close to £90 million, 114 million, the lion's share of which is allocated for tourism marketing activities.
Last Thursday, Bord Fáilte and Tourism Ireland Ltd. confirmed that they were urgently re-examining, in consultation with the tourism industry and through the tourism marketing partnership structure, their respective marketing programmes and plans for the remainder of 2001 and for 2002. Bord Fáilte announced late last week a £750,000, 950,000, programme of additional immediate measures for the British and Irish markets. Meanwhile, the new chief executive of Tourism Ireland Ltd. is already spearheading the review of marketing plans for 2002 with the intention of making a major announcement early next month in conjunction with the launch of a new advertising campaign for the island of Ireland. These moves have been welcomed by ITIC and I am grateful for their measured response to date to the current situation.
The Government is also very conscious of the important link between competitive air access and future tourism flows and has been working closely with the Irish aviation sector to help resolve recent difficulties and to help preserve the greatest number of international gateways.
Given the changed circumstances, I also believe it is vitally important to quickly bed down the process of institutional change now under way in the tourism State agencies which have remained unchanged in structure since the early 1960s. It will be critical to complete an orderly hand over of responsibility to Tourism Ireland Ltd. in time for the 2002 marketing season.
My Department has been keeping in close consultation with the Department of Public Enterprise in recent days and I particularly welcome today's announcement by Aer Rianta to extend its discount scheme for new routes to Dublin Airport. Under this scheme there will be no charges for new routes for three years. I also welcome the very attractive discount return fare of $198 introduced by Aer Lingus for its services from New York and Boston to Ireland up to mid-December.